1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medium support member and a printing system including the medium support member. The present invention also relates to a method of forming a medium support member.
2. Description of Background Art
Medium supports for stationary holding and flattening of print media during a print process are commonly used. In the field of printing, it is known to use a suction box for holding and flattening print media during a printing operation. Such a suction box usually has a perforated top surface and the inner volume of the suction box is maintained at an underpressure by means of a vacuum pump.
It is a disadvantage of this kind of medium supports, that the construction of the suction boxes, on which the print media are supported, have a very complex construction to distribute the underpressure from the suction device to the print medium. The sizes of suction boxes vary per printing system. In particular, suction boxes or suction tables for industrial flatbed printing systems can get very spacious. Although the suction table of a printing system has one size, the print media that are processed on the system can have multiple sizes. Not all sizes of print media cover the complete suction table during the printing process. To overcome the problem of suction leakage via perforations that are not covered by a print medium, the table, in which the underpressure is distributed over the plurality of perforations, must contain sufficient air flow resistance to uphold the underpressure when not all perforations are covered by a print medium. As the distance between a marking material applying printhead and the print medium must be very well defined, and preferably constant over the whole print area, the support surface of the support table must be very well defined. All these specifications contribute to the technical complexity of the support table.